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JoePianist

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Everything posted by JoePianist

  1. Wait at least four weeks following interviews to contact your potential POI for a status update. However, if you need to know sooner due to a pending offer, you can contact them sooner. This is how I would write the inquiry email – feel free to customize the following as you see fit: Email subject line: “Eilean Donan - Request for Application Update”: “Dear Dr. X, I hope this message finds you well during this busy season. I remain excited about the prospect of continuing my training under your mentorship. If possible, can you provide an estimated date by which I can expect a decision made about my application? I greatly appreciate your time and consideration. Please let me know if I can provide any further information as well. Best Regards, Eilean Donan”
  2. Yeah, it’s been that way in the psychology field pretty much forever ?
  3. The admissions process appeared about as bad as when I had applied 4-5 years ago and finally received a single admissions offer to a PhD Clinical Psychology program. I applied for two consecutive admissions cycles. I agree that there needs to be an overhaul to the admissions process across all doctoral psychology programs. I’m unsure if there’s been any prior attempts for applicants coming together as a group to appeal for this level of change. In terms of who to contact with complaints about this admissions process: For doctoral Clinical Psychology programs, I think that the Council of University Directors of Clinical Psychology (CUDCP) may be a possible idea. For the broader psychology field, the American Psychological Association may be an organization to which groups can send complaints. Of course, the risk of sending such complaints (if not anonymous) could possibly be certain program directors choosing not to admit any applicants who who were a part of these complaints.
  4. 1. Don’t worry too much about memorizing an entire tome of questions. Focus on being yourself and approach all interviews as relaxed, natural conversations with fellow humans. PI’s really brighten up when interviews are more like engaged, reciprocal conversations. 2. Your interviewers already recognize the extent of your experience from your applications, so focus on being confident and upfront about what you know and that you’re excited to learn more! 3. Yes. It’s not expected for applicants to have a specific program of research already carved out. It’s okay to be a bit broad when describing your current research interest. The way that you described your area of interest is good enough, in my opinion!
  5. Based on what you describe, I guarantee you 100% that you haven’t hurt your chances for admission at all. You’ve already thanked the PI for their flexibility – don’t send another email to apologize ?
  6. Yup – As I said earlier, applicants with existing connections to their potential POI will nearly always have the edge in applications. Very happy to hear this worked out for you, @rainbow56!
  7. Damn, that’s legitimately brutal. Hopefully you get accepted elsewhere so that this POI regrets not extending you an invite.
  8. You’re only waitlisted for an interview if the program tells you so.
  9. This is the dirty secret: Applicants who already have pre-established connections to their identified mentors through their current or previous PI will always have the edge in applications. It’s the same deal in job applications for any career field: Employers trust who they know.
  10. No, there’s no “requirement” for programs to notify applicants about rejections unfortunately. If a program does send a rejection letter, it’s typically sent in April. If you had submitted your applications in November or early-December and don’t receive any updates by the end of this month, it’s perfectly fine for you to email the program and politely ask for an update on your application.
  11. I haven’t been involved in the admissions process; but according to my own advisor who’s served on the admissions committee for UAB’s PhD Clinical Psychology program, admitted candidates typically have little-to-no research publications. In our program, it’s also common for admitted candidates to lack an honor’s (undergraduate) thesis or a master’s thesis. I, myself, didn’t have any research publications nor any thesis when I received my offer of admission.
  12. (Big Hugs) ? If I may provide any insight or advice as a fifth-year PhD Clinical Psychology student, you’re more than welcome to send me a message!
  13. To neutralize any questions pertaining to “Why don’t you have X?”, tell them it’s a goal you’re actively working, describe any barriers you encountered (e.g., lack of publication opportunities for undergraduates in PI’s laboratory), and describe any recent plans or efforts to obtain that goal. This question is basically gauging your ability to self-evaluate and your willingness to seek and integrate feedback. Interviewers basically want to hear that you sought feedback on your previous application and how you applied that feedback for this current application cycle.
  14. @EileanDonan I agree with PsychBear92’s suggestion. Unless you’re applying to a PsyD program, your personal statement should focus heavily on your interest in research. If you do touch on your interest in clinical work, make sure you follow it up by connecting it back to research (e.g., saying how clinical work informs better research). Ironically, when applying for your internship year as a fourth- or fifth-year doctoral Clinical/Counseling Psychology student, all internships prefer applicants to focus on their interest in CLINICAL work on the personal statement, rather than research ? The reason is that internship year is primarily a clinical year – at most, an internship may provide an intern with 4-8 hours/week to engage in research work while the remaining 36+ hours/week is reserved for clinicals, lectures, and receiving mentorship.
  15. @PsychBear92 This list is from 2014, but most of the information remains about the same. It also labels whether a particular program provides any sources of funding.
  16. Not sure why @clinical_sike had downvoted this – I personally think it’s a decent addition to the template that @tryingtostaypositive provided.
  17. @EileanDonan @PsychApplicant2 @K3lD1Psych I am a BIPOC male and tended to score badly on the GRE (Verbal & Quantitative combined ~305) despite my 3.8 undergraduate GPA with pre-medicine and engineering courses. Still, I was able to get admitted to the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) PhD Medical/Clinical Psychology program and proceed to ace all my graduate coursework, research, and clinical training. I am now towards the end of my program and am currently interviewing for multiple elite pre-doctoral internships, including a couple of Ivy League’s.
  18. Unfortunately, this is just how things work for academic faculty; they tend to look after their own self-interests first. Unless they’ve already committed to accepting a new job position, they don’t want to scare away good mentees for their lab if they ultimately decide to stay; and so, faculty tend to not disclose their consideration of transferring out.
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